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All new readers please procedd to the prologue.
Ch. 5
Four am was still the dead of night even on another planet. It wasn't a peaceful night; it was loud with the sounds of night animals and the hum of the launch bay as it slowly groaned open. Massive floodlights ringing the platform shot beams of illumination like white pillars into the sky. The platform made a low thunk when it finished opening, spilling more light from the massive tunnel in one gargantuan beam cutting heavenward. There was another hum, more like a massive, whining groan as the real landing platform rose up toward the surface, taking the Black Dragon for its very first outdoor trip.
Inside the Phantom, Jace and company were making their final rounds, squeezing in last minute diagnostics and equipment checks that consisted mostly of flipping a few switches on and off. It wasn't exactly necessary, but it was launch day and no one could sit still. Jace felt like he had ants crawling all over his nerves, and he was pretty sure his heart didn't normally beat this fast. He was excited, nervous, looking forward to command and dreading the place where that command was to happen. He was captain of a Phantom, and his sector was the Bermuda Triangle of the galaxy. It was a very yin/yang predicament.
Jace was quite proud of the fact that he had yet to puke. His sector being the Void combined with his new responsibility was making his chest feel a little tight.
Jace stood with Matt at the coms, flipping the switches of the relay and radars when the blinding white lights of the tunnel blessedly gave way a shadowed jungle and endless starry sky. Matt dropped into the seat of his station and Jace hurried over to his chair plopping himself unceremoniously into it, then flipped on the ship-wide speakers.
“All right ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Keep your arms and legs inside the ride and don't forget to buckle up. Dampeners usually keep things quiet but it's said the first launch is always a little twitchy. So better safe than sorry.”
“What the hell did you drag me into Jace?” Morgan's replied.
Jace grinned but didn't respond. He eased back in his own seat following his own orders and strapping into the safety harness. The bridge was filled with the sound of clicking belts and the zip of straps being adjusted.
The launch platform moaned and whined to a stop with a hollow clunk. A portion of the platform raised forming a ramp that lifted the Black Dragon toward the sky. The Phantom was a planet capable ship, but it never hurt to give it a little boost on the take offs.
“Black Dragon,” said a flat voice over the com, “You are go for launch.”
“Don't mess around, do they?” Izzy said. The young pilot slipped a small chip into the data receiver. “Usually takes, like, another hour before a carrier gets to launch.”
“That's because it takes an hour just to start 'em up,” Al replied. “What the hell did you just put in?”
Izzy glanced over his shoulder at Jace. “Permission for a little take off music?”
Jace shrugged. “What the hell. Makes a launch more interesting.”
Izzy grinned then pulled a pair of wire-rim sunglasses from his pocket to slip onto his face.
“Every ship should have its own send-off theme song, Al,” he said. Izzy flipped several switches that brought the engines on line.
“Engines are a go,” said Christina.
Izzy flipped two more switches, then tapped several icons on the touch screen in front of the controls. The music of Steppenwulf's Magic Carpet Ride thundered out of the ship coms, filling the bridge.
Jace nodded in approval. “Good choice, Lieutenant.”
Izzy grinned, and gripped the controls.
“Take her up,” Jace said.
Izzy pushed the controls forward. Jace didn't feel the ship so much as twitch, and the rumble of the engines bursting to life was like distant thunder (wonderful bit of tech, those dampeners). The sight of the mountains whipping out of sight from the ship's peripheral view made Jace start a little. Only Asps ever took off with that kind of abruptness. Ice-particles whipped across the view screen like ribbons of clouds, soon replaced by sparking yellow and blades of orange scraping off the ship's nose as it broke through the atmosphere. It was about now when turbulence was felt, but in the Phantom Jace was only aware of the turbulence as slight vibrations in the arms of his chair and the floor. The halo of heat whipping over the ship was short lived when the Phantom broke away from the planet out into the vacuum of space. The vibrations ceased, and the Black dragon moved through zero-gravity like a stingray through water.
Izzy chuckled with hysteric giddiness. “Ah man, I love how this sucker handles.”
“Let me try,” Al said, and gripped her controls. Izzy switched piloting over to her, and Al's face lit up like a kid in a toy store.
“We're still within the planet's gravitation, right? Because I cannot feel any resistance. Only fighters fly this smooth.”
Izzy laid his head on the console and rubbed it along its edge. “I love you Black Dragon. Let's fly off and elope.”
Al moved one hand from the controls to lean over and whack Izzy on the shoulder. Izzy's head shot up and his hand shot to his shoulder to rub it.
“ Ow! Hey, don't tell me you weren't thinking the same thing.”
Jace smiled. His crew was weird, but he liked that. Crews that didn't feel comfortable around each other normally didn't last long... survival wise.
A small screen on Jace's console rolled with readings concerning the engines' current state. Stability and fuel capacity displayed as two bars of red fading to green. The same readings would be displayed for the pilots who always needed to be aware of what the ship they were controlling was up to. With engine status there was also the current state of the shielding, dampeners, weapons, communications, and stealth mode which was not engaged. Jace switched between each before opening coms to planetside.
“Base, this is Black Dragon. Everything's looking good on our end so far.”
“Understood, Black Dragon,” came Simmons' voice. “You are free to proceed to your sector. Good luck to you.”
“Thanks base. Black Dragon out.” Jace looked up from his console. “Lieutenant Jimenez, take us out of here so we can engage the D-drive.”
Piloting was switched back over to Izzy. The view of one of Calypso's moons swung away as Izzy brought the ship about and pushed the engines to move them out of the planet's gravitational hold. Once beyond the Roche limit, Jace brought up navigations, and a holographic, three-dimensional, miniaturized rendition of the galaxy wrapped in a cubed chart appeared in the center of the bridge between the pilot chairs and captain's chair. Using the touch screen, Jace entered the code that was their current location, then the code that was their destination. Red lines appeared within the miniaturize galaxy showing the various routes to be taken to the Void. Straight lines were all good and well, but not always possible even with space and D-drives. There was plenty of crap from black holes to asteroids the size of planets that popped out of nowhere.
Jace entered the code for the path that would take the less time while also be less likely to get them killed. “We're set,” Jace said. “Let's get out of here.”
Izzy pushed away the small panel hiding the D-drive switch and pressed it. The green light changed red, there was a high-toned hum, and the view screen filled with a bright white light that shrank to a pinpoint at the end of a prismatic tunnel; a pinpoint the ship would never reach until their destination was reached. They were officially in another dimension – of sorts – that would take them to the Void within eight hours.
Jace unbuckled his harness and pushed off from his seat. “Good launch, people. We've got eight hours to kill so I suggest you make the best of them by relaxing. Except for you, Jimenez. You've got the bridge for the first two hours.”
Al clapped Izzy on the shoulder. “Yeah, so don't fall asleep.”
The song on Izzy's chip had changed to the Steve Miller Band's Joker with the volume turned down. Izzy eased back in his chair with his hands behind his head. Al got up from her seat and headed toward her quarters. “Wake me in two hours, Jimenez,” she called before vanishing behind the sliding doors.
Jace moved away from his seat to the right-side stairs leading to the hanger, then from the catwalk to the ground floor. He shot a brief glance to the motorcycle strapped to the side wall – an old-fashioned, diesel powered motorbike like the kind he and his buddies would take to the deserts of Utah. Antiques like that bike didn't react much to pulse mines except for a brief stutter to make one's heart-rate speed up before the bike sputtered back to normal. Jace continued on to the back and the Kriady stables. The six stalls were on the right, the stall doors half solid metal and the upper half metal bars. Kriadys integrated well with each other after a time. Before that time came, Kriadys became adamant about establishing dominance.
Right now they were all curled in their bedding of sawdust with their heads resting on their crossed forearms. Delany was in the right of the two middle stalls, so motionless it was like the Kriady wasn't even alive. When hibernating, Kriadys were only a few heart-rates away from being literally dead. Supposedly not even bears went into as deep an unconsciousness as Kriadys.
Jace slid his arms between the bars to lean his elbows on the rim of the stall door. It would have been relaxing to watch Delany sleep if the creature wasn't so blasted still. Not even its flanks moved that much, making observing a Kriady sleep more disturbing than calming. But it was better than trying to sit, or attempting a nap. He was excited, nervous, but more than that anxious to reach the Void and get settled enough to realize that the quadrant wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be. Or, more appropriately, come to know if the quadrant was as bad as everyone made it out to be.
It all came down to wanting to know. Good or bad, he'd take either one. It beat being ignorant and antsy about it.
Jace also wanted to suspend judgment for the time being, but his body wouldn't let him. He was going to have to sleep the sleep of a Kriady via a sedative tonight. Natural sleep had been long chucked out the airlock.
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Oh Boy!
Date: 2007-03-21 02:48 am (UTC)From:Re: Oh Boy!
Date: 2007-03-21 03:31 am (UTC)From:Re: Oh Boy!
Date: 2007-03-22 06:18 pm (UTC)From: